NASA opts to play safe, finally

The US space agency, NASA, after weeks of dithering has finally taken the decision. Two of its astronauts, Sunita Williams and Buch Wilmore, who had gone for an eight-day test trip of Boeing’s Starliner shuttle, will now return in SpaceX’s Dragon in February 2025. Boeing’s Starliner developed serious glitches, especially with its propellers, eight of which had just failed. NASA and Boeing had tried to fix the problem, and NASA remained uncommitted as to how it wanted to bring back the two stranded astronauts.

So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. Two of its four seats will be empty as it flies to the International Space Station in September.

Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner will get back on autopilot, and it will land in New Mexico in the US. That is, if it manages to survive the ordeal of re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere with its dysfunctional propellers. NASA did not want to take the risk of putting Williams and Wilmore on the flight. If things go wrong, the Starliner could have drifted away, it would have been marooned in space, or it would have burnt itself. And in all the three instances, the lives of the two astronauts would have been in danger.

It was indeed a difficult decision for NASA to make. There was the other option of bringing back the two astronauts on the Russian Soyuz shuttle. It looks like that NASA wanted to use the American shuttle service of SpaceX, which is run by the maverick tycoon Elon Musk.

It is understandable that NASA was keen to develop an alternative to Musk’s SpaceX shuttle even as NASA wanted to opt out of making the shuttles. It is now focusing on training the astronauts. But the Boeing alternative has run into trouble. It does not mean that the Boeing option would be closed though the aeronautics major has lost a big opportunity. It seems that the company with decades of experience is going through a rough patch, even on its financial front.

Space ventures are mega ventures and need big budgets. Musk has managed to take off from Ground Zero though the years of preparation, experiment and failure lie beneath the surface. What NASA would not want is a private monopoly over space missions. Boeing will get another chance to prove its credentials. The return of Starliner would remain a major event because it would show if autopilot can be used successfully, and whether a partly dysfunctional space shuttle can return safely to earth.

Space missions have taken on a new dimension in the 21st century. While Musk has his own plans to reach to Mars and set up a colony – he has a sci-fi imagination – the US itself wants to get back into the moon and Mars missions in all seriousness. With China close on its heels, the Americans are reliving the old space race between the US and the then Soviet Union to reach the moon in the 1960s.

For nearly half-a-century, America went quiet on space missions, and especially manned ones. It looks like that it has suddenly woken up to its importance. There is also the realisation of it strategic implications for America’s future dominance in technology. India, Japan and Europe are lagging behind, but they are likely to catch up sooner than later with both the US and China.

The ISS in the post-Cold War era, after the collapse of communism in the 1990s, had proved to be a short-lived period of international bonhomie and cooperation in space. The ISS will be decommissioned even as China plans to set up its own space station. Americans are focusing on renewed manned flight to the moon.